


Metamorphoses

by ghostpicnic



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Biting, Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Inspired by Pygmalion and Galatea (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Not Beta Read, Pov: Hannibal Lecter, Resurrection, basically its pygmalion and galatea if pygmalion killed the girl then brought her back to life, does this make me a necro, i promise wills alive when they have sex, idk this is the pygmalion au no one asked for but i wrote, implied god will graham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:21:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28777455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostpicnic/pseuds/ghostpicnic
Summary: “Would you still have killed me, had you known?” That traitorous voice speaks again.“I would have had to. You were a witness, a liability. Even if we had not met tonight, you would always have died by my hands.”“But would I have needed to? I would have seen you, but would I truly have been so difficult to mold?”“The true sculptor knows that he is not molding a shape, but freeing it from the stone it is encased in.”***Hannibal kills a potential witness. That potential witness turns out to be the empath he'd agreed to consult on a psychological profile for. He begins to wonder if he's killed the most interesting person he would have even gotten the opportunity to know
Relationships: Jack Crawford & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 18
Kudos: 88





	1. The Heart Desires

**Author's Note:**

> I've simply always loved this particular Greek myth, and I thought it'd be interesting to see it through a much more gothic and bloody lense. I also write exclusively at 12-3am, so I apologize in advance if this is messy as hell.  
> title inspired by Ovid's "Metamorphoses," chapter titles from Sir Edward Burne-Jones' series, "Story of Pygmalion and Galatea"

There isn’t any real desire to kill the man in the alleyway, and perhaps not even any true need. He is assuredly inebriated, based on his stumbling gait, and unlikely to remember the sight of Hannibal leaving the office building. Unfortunately, caution is key when one has hobbies such as his own.

And so, he toes off his shoes, watching the man lean his shoulder against the brick wall to light a cigarette. On socked silent feet, he comes up behind the man and takes him by the neck. The man resists, making strained choking noises, but he is much too drunk and caught-off guard to truly put up much of a fight. Hannibal holds him until he feels his pulse die, then allows him to slump to the ground. 

Trying to decide whether to move the body or leave it where it is, Hannibal studies the man’s face in the lamplight. He is classically beautiful, handsome not an adequate description. He’s pretty, his square jaw seemingly cut from stone, brunette curls framing his face. The quiet expression he wears is reminiscent of a statue of Galatea Hannibal had seen in Florence. Gentle, calm, on the verge of breathing. A god of Hannibal’s own creation through the chisel of death. 

Hannibal is still wearing his gloves, so he sees no harm in digging through the man’s pockets to find his wallet, a decaying leather billfold stuffed with a few twenties, rumpled receipts, a Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card, and his driver’s license. The license proclaims him Will Graham, a 39 year old man from Virginia who is not an organ donor. It is the name that gives Hannibal pause. 

That name had recently popped up several times in his life, in a call from the director of the BAU and a subsequent Freddie Lounds article. A man with a peculiar cleverness. A man he might be called to help build a psychological profile for. A man he’d very much been looking forward to meeting.

And now that name is connected to a man lying dead at Hannibal’s feet. It is possible that this is not the same Will Graham, it cannot be that uncommon of a name, but Hannibal Lecter does not believe in coincidence. 

He does not have his smart phone on him, it is in his bedroom so as not to place him at the crime scene, so he is not able to google the man, but he is sure there was no way it is not him. It would be too convenient. 

So, he picks the body up, bridal style, and carries it to the trunk of his car. He will find a way to display the body, but for now he wants to do some reading about Will Graham.

***

If he is being honest, Hannibal is just the slightest bit disappointed in Will Graham. From what he knows of the man, he was supposed to have incredible instincts for people, rumored to be able to understand anyone and anything. He was supposed to know first hand the monsters of the world, yet he had been taken down while inebriated in a dark alleyway. It was… sloppy. Amateurish. 

Perhaps he doesn’t deserve a display, doesn’t deserve to be honored by Hannibal’s hand. 

This is what his mind repeats the entire drive home, and as he loads the limp body into his basement. And yet he still finds himself already thinking up tableaus that will do him justice. 

Time is against him, as he needs to do something with the man before rigor mortis sets in, but first he needs to do some research. 

Jack Crawford had made the call to Hannibal two days previous. He was ascertaining whether Hannibal was free this week to meet and help him with the psychological profile of Will Graham, a potentially unstable man he was looking to clear for active return to the field. Hannibal had been noncommittal, not yet decided on whether a flirtation with the FBI would serve him very well. He enjoys his freedom from scrutiny, it gives him room to revel in hedonism as he wishes. 

But within twenty-four hours of that call, a Freddie Lounds article dropped, and Hannibal’s interest in the man was peaked. Lounds referred to Will’s work as “using one twisted mind to catch another,” making a number of unsubstantiated and downright hurtful claims against Mr. Graham. However, the description between those jabs painted a picture of a man with a haunted house in his head, who was desperately running himself ragged fighting the shadows in his own mind.

Hannibal called Jack Crawford back almost immediately. He agreed to come in, to speak to Will, perhaps to give them a method of keeping this type of scrutiny off him. 

Well, there is bound to be a lot of scrutiny on him now.

A quick google search confirms that the man who currently lay dead in Hannibal’s basement is, in fact, *that* Will Graham.

Some further digging brings Hannibal to Will’s monograph, as well as a handful of peer-reviewed journals he’d written over the years. Further, there is the local New Orleans news report of Will’s stabbing. All of it paints a picture of a man hiding a depth the way the ocean hides its trenches.  
Jack had described Will as dealing with a huge amount of fear. Hannibal can only imagine what laid in the dark recesses of the man’s mind that made so afraid. He is sure it would have been beautiful to uncover. But that is no longer a possibility. 

The opportunity to know Will Graham has been lost to Hannibal forever. 

He closes his tablet and returns to the basement to stand over the corpse of the man he was supposed to profile. The man who Hannibal had been eager to strip to his most base layers. Someone he’d looked forward to knowing. 

“Would that knowledge have gone both ways?” a low voice murmurs from behind him. Hannibal turns his head only slightly, the ghost of Will Graham’s breath on his neck. “Would I have been able to see you? Could we have known each other?”

“Perhaps.” He shakes off the shadow of the man and strides to the operating table where the body is laid out.

He needs to work quickly. 

His design is simple. Undressing Will with a clinical hand, posing him atop a pedestal, wire wrapping around his frame to hold him steady. A white silk sheet draped across his lap, held aloft by one of his hands.

Will deserved decadence, he thinks, deserved a grand, dramatic death. Hannibal deserved to deliver that death to him. But that opportunity has been denied to him, to both of them.

“Would you still have killed me, had you known?” That traitorous voice speaks again. 

“I would have had to. You were a witness, a liability. Even if we had not met tonight, you would always have died by my hands.”

“But would I have needed to? I would have seen you, but would I truly have been so difficult to mold?”

“The true sculptor knows that he is not molding a shape, but freeing it from the stone it is encased in.”

“Is that what you would have done? Had we met?”

Hannibal does not answer. He focuses on the task at hand. He will wait a day or two to display him, perhaps let the body decay some more before encasing it in concrete and putting it up at the park. Perhaps he will leave him as is and put him up in Jack Crawford’s front yard.

For now, he looks up at the posed body, stoic and regal. 

“Do you regret it?”

“With every choice lies the possibility of regret. I made a split second decision that will ultimately allow me to keep my freedom. I acted when I could not have, and actions always have consequences.

“I do not regret killing you any more than you regret having a drink rather than driving home.”

“What will Jack Crawford do, once it becomes clear that I’m missing?”

“One must not dwell too much on possibilities. You are gone, and I can work no more tonight.”

He turns from the body to face his empty basement and ascends the stairs.

***

Cold hands press against Hannibal’s cheeks, coaxing his eyes open. His cheek rests in the palm of a marble statue, the face of which is turned up to the heavens, a godly jawline on full display. 

A chisel rests in Hannibal’s hand, the bottom half of the statute still encased in a block of ivory. He allows it to fall to the floor with a soft clink as he raises his hand to the statue’s face, running his fingertips over the lifelike stubble on its chin, pressing his thumb to its lips so smooth. It is all hard as, well, stone, but he can feel warmth beneath. 

His breath fogs the smooth marble of the statue’s forearm, making evident the tiniest of pores and veins. 

He could not have sculpted this creature, so close to life. Not one of his displays can compare. If he could stand, like this, gazing up at the statue’s form for all eternity, he will be content.

Of course, he is interrupted. 

The smartphone he’d left so carefully on the nightstand while completing his work the night before is now ringing violently. 

“Doctor Hannibal Lecter,” he answers, voice still rough with sleep.

“Dr. Lecter, sorry to wake you, but there’s been an emergency.” Jack Crawford’s voice responds. 

Knowing it is about Will, Hannibal sits up and shifts to the edge of the bed. “I hope nothing disastrous?”

“Will Graham has gone missing.” His voice is steady, but Hannibal can hear the anxiety behind it. There is genuine worry there, both for his colleague and for the consequences that will befall him for losing an agent that should not have been in the field in the first place. 

“Mr. Graham has a history of reclusion, does he not?”

“He has a history of being private and introverted, even a history of not answering phone calls for several hours. But I drove to his house in Wolf Trap and by the looks of it he never went home last night, his dogs were tearing the place apart when I got here. He definitely does not have a history of abandoning his dogs.” There is a pause, and Hannibal hears the sounds of claws on tile followed by Jack cooing at what is presumably one such dog. “This is very unlike him, Dr. Lecter. I know you never met the man, but I’d like to meet with you regardless.”

“Have you reported his disappearance?”

“I’ve notified my higher ups, but like you said, he has a history of instability. I doubt anything will be done for a couple days. But something feels off here, Doctor. Can you come in today? We can discuss him, maybe you can give us some insight as to where he’s gone.”

Hannibal thinks to the regally modeled body in his basement. Part of him wants to encase him in stone and keep him in his house forever, a monument to what could have been an extremely interesting game. That is much too sentimental a thought for his taste, though. 

“I will meet you at Quantico.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” 

After preparing for the day, Hannibal makes his way once again to the basement. 

He’d opted not to be too invasive with Will’s body, posing him by wrapping wire around his limbs. His eyes are closed, even though Hannibal would have preferred them open, as they were such a lovely shade of blue, but the preservation would not have been possible without adequate preparation. 

Again, he curses his inability to plan for this, but checks that the thermostat in the freezer is set at the best temperature to slow decomposition and heads on his way.

***

Jack Crawford is pacing his office, phone to his ear, when Hannibal arrives. He slides it angrily into his pocket when Hannibal knocks.

“Will still not picking up, I assume?” Hannibal observes.

Jack shakes his head. “No. I don’t really expect him to. Tracking cut out around a bar he was spotted at last night, don’t know what-” He is cut off by his desk phone ringing. Sighing, he nods in apology to Hannibal and picks it up. 

Hannibal assumes it is the call about what he’d left on the office roof, another Ripper murder.

When Jack sets down the phone and, head hung in exhaustion, he looks to Hannibal. “Care to accompany me to a crime scene, Doctor?”

***

“Will’s been investigating the Ripper exclusively since Eldon Stammets’ arrest, until we could clear him for active return to the field. If he didn’t hate you like he hated the other psychiatrists, I would’ve asked you to perform the psych eval.” Jack is explaining to Hannibal, who sits in the passenger seat of the car. 

“Why did you feel the need to perform an evaluation on Will?” It has to do with the Hobbs case, he knows, but the bureau had been careful about preventing too many details from that one getting into the press. 

“Will was never an FBI agent. He tried, years ago, didn’t get past screenings. Hence the history of instability. Woulda stayed buried in a classroom if I hadn’t asked him to get close to the Hobbs thing.”

Will truly was a shy boy, difficult to know. Burying himself under mountains to keep his cracks from showing. Perhaps the pressure was deepening those cracks.

“Tell me about the Hobbs case. It ended in casualties, did it not?”

“Will looked at a box of resignation letters and picked Hobbs’ name out of a hundred because of a clerical error. That’s why I wanted him, he made jumps he couldn’t explain. He had a way of knowing. It was like… he could crack a stone and the excess would fall away, exposing the shape inside. Brilliant. But, Hobbs reacted badly when Will showed up for an interview. I was deposed in court that day, he was with some deputy. The deputy was using the bathroom when Hobbs slit his wife’s throat. He was going for his daughter when Will managed to get out his gun and shoot him ten times.”

“The daughter survived, yes?”

“Yeah, barely a scratch on her. But when I talked to the deputy, he said the girl ran out of the house to call the police, and Will was just standing over the body. He tried to get him to leave, but Will was totally unresponsive, and the deputy had to leave to accompany the girl. When CRT arrived, they just led Will to the ambulance. He didn’t speak for 24 hours.”

“Why did you not get a profile on him sooner? Why let him work another case after that?”

“He was working with Alana Bloom for a little while, didn't want to see anyone else. Alana had been pushing for an official therapist for him for a while. After Stammetts, Alana had to insist. She recommended you for an official psych eval.”

“What happened with Stammetts?”

“Will chased him through a supermarket, took him down with a shot to the shoulder. The Lounds article went up the next day.”  
The article that made Hannibal want to work with Will. 

“He has an empathy disorder, yes? Perhaps after killing one and very nearly killing another, there was a surgance of that fear you described him as dealing with. Fear of himself, of something else, no one knows, but from what I know of him, the entire world might begin to seem like the enemy at a certain point.”

He feels a brush of cool air against his neck. He sits taller, unwilling to check the backseat for something he knows not to be there.

“Dr. Bloom told me during our first conversation about him that he deals with huge amounts of fear. I’ll be honest, we need Will. He solves cases faster, saves lives. We got on without him before, but once he was in the saddle it was faster, like going from a landline to a smartphone. Wherever he’s gone now, we need him back in the saddle as soon as possible.”

“If it is possible,” Hannibal says.

“What do you-” Jack’s phone rings, yet again. He takes it off the car speaker and raises it to his ear. 

While he argues into the phone, Hannibal tries not to hear Will’s voice in the back of his mind, whispering questions of companionship, of the hot darkness inside him that will now forever remain covered. He closes his eyes, retreats to his mind palace, the one place he might escape this lingering spirit.

The Norman Chapel is his safe space. Quiet, decadent, blessedly empty. No marble statues sit atop the altar. No footsteps echo on the tile. 

Jack Crawford’s voice pulls him back to reality. 

“They found Will’s phone smashed up in an alley a few blocks from the bar he was last seen in.”

“I assume he was not holding on to it?”

“No, but get this: it was just across the street from the building this crime scene we’re heading to is in.” 

“The suspected Ripper scene?” Hannibal hadn’t meant to leave Will’s phone intact enough to be tracked, but he’d been uncharacteristically shocked after the discovery of Will’s identity.

“You were sloppy,” a cool voice taunts in his ear. He staunchly does not react. “You never even met me and I made you sloppy… Perhaps it’s good you killed me. Imagine what I could have done to you alive.”

Hannibal inhales deeply. It’s barely a reaction to the eyes of Jack, but he is bothered by this… lingering of his victim. His victim is all Will Graham is, all he ever would have been, a pig like the rest.

Jack is silent for the rest of the drive. He is quiet at the crime scene. Hannibal can sense the guilt he feels.

Miriam Lass has been staying at Hannibal’s cliff property for close to two years now, he can’t imagine the burden Jack feels having lost two agents to the Ripper. Perhaps this will remind him to be more careful with his employee’s lives, though Hannibal doubts it. Jack Crawford seems a man with strong morals, and when faced with the decision to sacrifice one life for multiple others, he will always choose the majority. 

Perhaps Will’s death in that alley was a mercy, compared to the slow descent into madness that would have followed his employment at the FBI. And even though Hannibal mourns the loss of being able to watch that descent, maybe he’s decided he respects Will too much for that.

Yes. This is for the best.

He speaks briefly to Beverly Katz while her team gathers evidence from his display. They will find nothing, and Hannibal is deathly bored watching a bunch of bumbling fools try to understand his design.

He does not think about what Will would see. 

Ms. Katz describes an awkward man, most likely on the spectrum, that could stand at a crime scene and recreate it from the perspective of a killer. What Hannibal wouldn’t give to be able to see that man reconstruct this crime scene.

He dismisses himself from Ms. Katz, returning to the side of Jack Crawford.

“This doesn’t feel simple to me, Doctor.” Jack is staring down at the corpse, stuffed with tax papers like a straw man. “Could Will have found him? Did the Ripper take him?”

“If he did, could there be a chance he’s still alive?” Hannibal asks.

Jack shakes his head. “If he’s alive he won’t be for long. I had a- a trainee, a couple years ago. She found him. No one’s seen her since. If the Ripper’s killing again, like it looks like he is, he’s not going to leave any loose ends dangling.”

“It certainly would be uncharacteristic, from what I know of him.”

Jack is silent for several seconds. 

“Any interest in consulting on the Chesapeake Ripper, Dr. Lecter?”

It would be good for him. He could keep suspicion off himself and have inside control of the situation. He would have access to suspects, to the profile. But he looks around at the agents mulling around him, and is indescribably bored at the prospect. There is nothing new, nothing interesting in here that would justify him stepping back from the life he already has. 

“I’m sorry Jack. I agreed to a psychological profile, anything further and I must think of my patients. I don’t believe diving headfirst into this type of darkness would be beneficial for me or for them.”

Jack nods.

“I hope Will has just run off, Jack, truly.”

“Me too, but I don’t believe in coincidences. Not like this.”

Hannibal will freeze Will’s body for the time being, he thinks. He will let Jack Crawford dangle for a bit.

“Goodbye, Jack,” Hannibal says, before turning away and exiting the building. 

***

“You’re bored, Hannibal.” Will’s voice singsongs in his ear. He keeps his expression even, observing his guests with quiet pride. He is used to Will’s intrusion on his mind palace, this is nothing he cannot ignore.

Will’s body has been frozen in his basement for a week now. A week in which he went about his life as normal. Met with patients, prepared a dinner party, and hunted his ingredients. 

A week in which he could not stop himself from going to his basement to stare at the stone cold body of a man he sorely wished to have a conversation with. 

A week in which he had grown accustomed to the sound of footsteps echoing in his mind palace, and the whispering voice in his ear.  
Will’s face never appeared in Hannibal's mind palace, and though he had never heard the man’s voice in real life, he knew it was he who haunted him. Whose icy hands worked their way into his dreams. 

But he has guests to entertain. A dead man has no influence on this party. He turns his head to listen in on the conversation of Mrs. Komaeda, who is talking about a dispute she is currently having with her publisher.

“Boring,” Will’s voice chides. “She had that same problem with her last publisher, didn’t she?”

The corners of Hannibal’s mouth turn down slightly, but he quickly schools his expression back to one of silent interest, raising his fork to mask his slip.

“Why did you take nothing of me?” Will, again, as the fork is about to enter Hannibal’s mouth. “Did you want me intact? Am I not below you like the rest of them?” 

Hannibal takes his bite to stop himself from responding to the air. He will never know if Will could have been his equal, he thinks viciously at the apparition. And there would be no point in considering the possibility.

There is silence in his mind, up until it is time for the dessert course. He makes polite conversation with each guest, performing the way he always has. He tries not to feel empty. 

As conversation dies down, he stands and announces he will return with dessert.

In the kitchen, he and his staff are collecting the plates when that traitorous voice speaks again.

“What if you ruined your last opportunity for an interesting relationship? What if you passed up the last thing that could ever surprise you?”  
He nearly snarls with anger at the prospect, and is horribly, rudely detached for the rest of the evening. 

It disturbs him how… disquieted he is at this prospect, and he is acting absolutely disgraceful. His disengagement will not go unnoticed. He will have to make it up to each of his guests individually, but for now he just wants them all out of his home. 

He has a body to dispose of. 

***

Once the staff is cleared, he stalks down the stairs into the cellar. He turns the lights on, exposing the freezer door on the opposite end, and walks calmly towards it.

Hauling the body will be no easy task, but he has the tools and patience to do it. He needs this lingering spirit out of his mind, so that he may move on and return to enjoying all this life has to offer. 

But once more, standing in front of Will’s regal form, he is struck by how perfect he looks. Even a week after death, his skin is tinged blue and purple, and rigor mortis has clearly set in, but his posture seems so natural, his face so very well preserved. Hannibal wishes he could pose him again with open eyes, wishes he could convey how much this man would have seen. 

He’s struck by how much he doesn’t want to display this. It’s rushed, sloppy, and altogether inadequate.

“Would you undo it, if you could?” Will asks.

Hannibal closes his eyes, nods. 

The body is posed with one arm reaching forward, palm outstretched welcomingly. And Hannibal is overcome. 

He presses his check into the freezing, stony embrace of Will’s palm. He imagines it really is stone, and that Aphrodite will take mercy on him the way she did Pygmalion, that her blessing will cause it to crack and fall away, revealing human flesh beneath. 

“There is no promise that you could have impressed me,” he says to the empty air. “Nothing to indicate that I would not have killed you anyway. But you were trapped, and I would have preferred to free you more elegantly.” He closes his eyes once more.

The idea of companionship rarely crossed his mind before this week. Sure, he dabbled in bending others to his worldview, but that never left him any less alone. They were all his creations, only slightly above the pigs he hunted. 

Will Graham had been alone too, had killed a man and feared whatever door that opened in himself more than anything. He would not have needed bending towards Hannibal’s world, he simply needed the way cleared to him.

Hannibal will remain alone in his darkness, now.

“You are not alone,” Will’s voice again. But louder now, less of a whisper. “I’m standing right beside you.”

The warmth from Hannibal’s cheek has melted Will’s palm slightly, but its heat is suddenly shocking in the cold of the freezer. And then the hand moves, thumb moving to stroke across Hannibal’s cheekbone.

Letting out a soft gasp, Hannibal’s eyes fly open.

The brightest blue eyes Hannibal has ever seen are gazing down at him. “It’s you,” the man says in the voice that has been haunting Hannibal’s mind. 

He cannot respond, can only stare in awe at the skin that is no longer ashen, no longer tinged indigo in cold.

“You’re the Ripper,” Will Graham says.

“You’re alive,” Hannibal Lecter says. 

“You killed me.” There is no contempt in his voice, only observation.

“I freed you.”

“I saw you, in that alley. I knew what you were.”

“You didn’t fight back,” Hannibal says, surprised. “I would not have followed, if you’d walked away.”

“I was curious what you would do.”

“And are you pleased with the results?”

“Pleased? I don’t know what that would even mean. But I’m not afraid, anymore.”

“I suspect death becomes less of a threat after surviving it.”

“I didn’t survive it.”

“Besting it, then. You may as well be invincible now.”

“Do you think you created me? That through the death you caused I have become more?”

“I didn’t create you. I simply cracked the marble in the right place to free you. Through the medium of blood and bone I have exposed the terrible, beautiful creature buried in the ivory.”

“And so Aphrodite brought me back for you?”

“Aphrodite did not do this, darling Will, you did. I prayed to no one but you.” Hannibal raises his hands and cups Will’s warm cheeks. “You are… extraordinary. The idea that I could have lived without you for even a second after becoming aware of you is laughable in its absurdity. I beg your forgiveness, and that you let us never be parted again.”

Will smiles, and he is radiant atop his pedestal. Hannibal is sure there has never been a man more worthy of worship. He moves his other hand (dropping the sheet it’d been holding up into his lap) to Hannibal’s face, so that they are holding each other’s heads in their hands. “Come here,” he murmurs, gently coaxing Hannibal closer.

The pedestal is too tall, Hannibal has to climb atop Will’s scantily adorned thighs to close the space between them. 

Their kiss is soft, more of a worshipful caress than an expression of desire. Hannibal is lost in the sensation of Will’s warm flesh, so vibrant and alive. He breaks their kiss to move to Will’s neck, pressing his mouth to the steady beat of his pulse, delighting at the way it jumps at the touch of his lips. He smells of a cheap aftershave, coffee, and whiskey. Even after a week in Hannibal’s freezer, the scent of death does not cling to him.  
Will’s hands move to bury themselves in Hannibal’s hair, pressing him into Will’s throat. 

As Hannibal laps and kisses at that soft spot, his hands move of their own accord along every inch of skin he can reach. He keeps his palms flat, not wanting to damage the flesh of his miraculous beloved. 

This tenderness is unfamiliar to him. Intimacy is rarely more of a means to an end for him, simply another way for him to assert his control. But he has tried to maintain his control around this man once before, has revelled in his usual violence, and it accomplished nothing but sending fissures through his own expertly sanded surface. 

The kisses Hannibal presses to Will’s throat are soft, loving. Penitent.

Gently, Will coaxes Hannibal’s head up, resuming their eye contact. “Do you know what I am?” His voice is soft, wavering in its uncertainty.  
“Yes,” Hannibal answers. He presses another kiss to Will’s lips before continuing. 

“You are perfect.” 

A kiss. 

“Magnificent.” 

A kiss, lingering just a bit longer. 

“Divine.” 

He takes Will’s slightly open mouth as an opportunity to deepen their intimacy, to press his tongue in and taste. He tastes of alcohol and of cigarettes, but there is something sweeter there, too. Something that drives Hannibal to distraction trying to taste well enough to determine its origin. 

But Will is moaning softly into the kiss, distracting Hannibal from any train of thought he might have been following. Hands press to the seat of his pants, rutting the increasingly apparent line of his cock against Will’s bare chest. The friction causes him to gasp, breaking the kiss long enough for Will to grin in a distinctly unholy way at him.

“Will you worship me, then?” 

The noise that Hannibal makes would be pathetic, he thinks, if it were for anyone less deserving. A guttural gasp, a moan and a sob and a sigh of relief all at once. He nods, moving more insistently against Will’s lap. 

But Will has a design of his own, it seems. He pushes Hannibal back, not unkindly but firmly. He nearly falls on his descent from the pedestal, but maintains his balance to see Will stand above him, the sheet falling and baring his form. And no part of Hannibal is surprised that this radiant man was granted a second life. That the bars of death herself could not hold such grace. 

He steps down, eye level with Hannibal, and lifts his palm to cup his cheek, a more equal rendition of their positioning when Will awoke. Hannibal sighs, eyes on the verge of falling shut. But suddenly there is a righteous fire in Will’s eyes, and then he has Hannibal turned around, his neck caught in the crook of the nude man’s elbow, a mimicry of the way Hannibal strangled Will in that alley. 

“I should kill you, like this. Like you did me,” Will hisses into his ear. “But I think I prefer us both alive. So you will spend eternity paying penance for your audacity.”

Hannibal huffs, gasping for breath and delighting in Will’s beautiful cruelty.

When Will releases him, he really does fall to the ground. He stares up, sits back on his palms, and waits for an order. 

“Take me upstairs. You won’t have me here, not where you keep the dead.”

Pushing himself on to shaky legs, Hannibal wraps an arm around Will’s shoulders, then slips the other behind his knees, scooping Will into his arms in a bridal carry. “Anything. Anywhere.”


	2. The Soul Attains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like a worshipper in church, Hannibal kneels on the foot of the bed, and slowly lowers himself above Will. He presses soft, open mouthed kisses up the man’s legs, running his hands along his thighs.  
> “You feel divine,” Hannibal murmurs between kisses pressed in a trail up and down Will’s stomach. “Like the very air around you is humming with your life.”
> 
> ***
> 
> They have sex and then have a conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you dont wanna read my sloppy attempt at writing sex, skip the whole first part of the chapter down to the ***

He lays Will down gently in his bed, then stands at attention at the foot of the bed, taking in Will’s form as the man lounges decadently across the silk sheets. 

“Are you going to beg my forgiveness fully clothed?” Will says playfully. “Or are you going to strip yourself for me?” 

Immediately, Hannibal is discarding his suit jacket and fumbling with the buttons on his dress shirt. 

Will simply observes, amused, as Hannibal slowly bares himself. His gaze turns hungry, though, once Hannibal’s shoes have been removed and he is letting his pants slide to the floor. His fingers are slipping below the waistband of his underwear when Will stops him.

“Wait.” Hannibal’s hands immediately still, dropping to his sides. “Come here,” Will commands.

Like a worshipper in church, Hannibal kneels on the foot of the bed, and slowly lowers himself above Will. He presses soft, open mouthed kisses up the man’s legs, running his hands along his thighs. 

“You feel divine,” Hannibal murmurs between kisses pressed in a trail up and down Will’s stomach. “Like the very air around you is humming with your life.”

Will’s cock tempts him, but he does not want to presume anything with the man lounging beneath him. For now, he drinks in the soft gasps escaping Will’s mouth and he licks and sucks into the soft flesh on the inside of Will’s thighs. 

He is careful not to leave a mark. He will not mar this beautiful flesh, not again.

“H-hannibal,” Will gasps when Hannibal nips softly at the flesh just below his dripping cock. Hannibal stops, resting his cheek against Will’s stomach to gaze up at him. He is beautiful, truly. His face is flushed red, so mesmerizing in its vibrance. His arms reach up, behind him, gripping the sheets. “Touch me.”

“Is that not what I’ve been doing?” Hannibal says, smiling oh-so-fondly. 

Will’s eyes snap open, glaring down at him in annoyance. “That doesn’t sound like penitence.”

Obediently, Hannibal resumes pressing tender kisses to Will’s stomach, trailing to the base of his dick. He moves his hand to stroke up the length, just once before nuzzling his cheek against it and taking it into his mouth. Will moans, bucking his hips, thrusting deep into Hannibal’s throat. Hannibal does not gag with the pressure, makes no move to stop Will from doing it again.

“Would you let me use you, like this? Is that how your worship presents itself?” His voice is breathy from pleasure, each word sending shoots of fire through Hannibal’s very bones. 

He pulls back from Will to respond. “I beg for absolution in all forms, dear Will.” His lips brush against Will’s slit as he speaks each word. “Forgiveness in your eyes is the greatest pleasure you could offer me.”

One of Will’s hands untangles itself from the sheets and grabs hold of Hannibal’s hair, taking his parted lips pushing down on his cock. 

“I forgive you,” he gasps. “You’re so-fuck-you’re so good, so good for me. You’re mine.” Hannibal moans around him at the praise, hollowing out his cheeks to suck harder. Will bucks against him once more, then pulls him off.

Hannibal scrambles up Will’s form, kissing him, allowing Will to taste himself on Hannibal’s tongue. 

“I want-” Will says between desperate kisses. “Hannibal-”

Hannibal shushes him with a soft nip on his bottom lip, lining their cocks up and taking them both in his hand. He thinks he should feel completely out of his depth, this deep desperation for another person. But he finds he cannot focus well enough to entertain the thought for more than a fleeting second. 

He doesn’t yet understand exactly why Will was there, that night, but he finds he doesn’t care. Through death, they are inexorably linked. 

“Take your pleasure, my love, bind us forever, let us never be parted,” Hannibal pants into Will’s mouth. 

In response, Will lets out a guttural cry, thrusting into Hannibal’s grip. He pushes Hannibal’s chin up, exposing his neck. The hunger in Will’s eyes alone is enough to nearly push Hannibal over the edge. 

He surges up, burying his teeth into the space just above Hannibal’s collarbone, and Hannibal spills over Will’s stomach with a groan. 

Will is close behind, detaching from Hannibal’s throat as he keens and comes into Hannibal’s fist. He collapses back on the bed, the picture of divine satisfaction, droplets of blood staining his lips. Hannibal kisses him once more, then falls to the side, wrapping Will into his arms and tucking his face into the crook of his neck. 

He should clean, should check the wound on his neck as it’s clear that Will broke the skin, but it feels a small price to pay for Will’s life. And he is holding onto him so tightly, making such contented noises against his throat, his skin so soft and humming with life. Hannibal simply cannot bring himself to ever leave his arms. 

***

When he wakes to Will’s angelic face gazing down at him, Hannibal thinks he must still be dreaming.

“And with thy grace, the soul attains,” he murmurs. Will huffs a breath, stroking Hannibal’s cheek. “I didn’t expect you to wake before me.”

Will turns his gaze to the rest of the room. “Sleep feels… odd, now. I slept dreamlessly for the first time in my life, last night.”

“Has dying killed all of the demons residing in the fortress of your mind?” Hannibal questions.

The other man shakes his head, his hand still stroking through Hannibal’s hair. “They’re all still there, I just feel… bigger than them, now. I am bigger than them.”

“You’ve defeated man’s greatest enemy, I assume the rest pale in comparison now.”

His grip on Hannibal’s scalp tightens slightly, head turning back to look at him. “You used to be my greatest enemy.” 

“And now?”

“I bested you by dying. The Chesapeake Ripper almost driven to ruin after killing his greatest threat. You’re basically putty in my hands, now.”

Hannibal is given pause by how apt the observation is. No one has ever gotten this close, no one has he revered like this. Will Graham has sequestered control of his weapon without his notice.

“I’m your trophy.”

“I suppose. Though I prefer to think of you as my worshiper.”

“Also an apt description.”

Several moments of contemplative silence pass before Will speaks again. “So, what now?” 

“Now, I would suggest a shower for the both of us, followed by breakfast and coffee, as I’m certain you have not eaten in a week.”

“As lovely as that sounds, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“And whatever did you mean, dear Will?”

“Jack Crawford is sure I’m dead.” 

“He believes you were captured and killed by the Chesapeake Ripper, yes,” Hannibal says, shifting onto his side and propping his head up on his hand. 

“So he believes the truth, then,” he responds, smiling softly.

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to go back, it was bad for me, I was-”

“You don’t have to, I certainly would never ask you to.”

“Yeah, but I also don’t want to live as some decorative ornament in this house forever, as much as I’m sure you’d enjoy that.”

Hannibal smiles, turning his head down in soft acknowledgment of the truth. “I would have us never be parted again, if it were possible. But I also must consider your own autonomy.”

Will is quiet.

“I think we would be better equipped to have this conversation on full stomachs.” Hannibal crawls out of the bed and holds out a hand to the other man. “Come.”

In the shower, after Hannibal has tended to the wound on his neck, he and Will wash each other down, their touches gentle and exploring, but nonsexual.

Once clean, Hannibal provides Will with some of his lounge clothes and escorts him to the large armchair in the kitchen. 

He whips up a quick, simple breakfast of protein scramble and coffee. Made more to be filling and flavorful rather than to be art. Will takes his plate eagerly.

He chews thoughtfully, nodding his appreciation at the flavor. “We won’t be parted, but I’m alive. I want to live like it,” he states after a few bites, continuing their earlier conversation.

Hannibal sits on the arm of the chair, taking a sip of coffee before responding. “We will come up with a plan. Say you suffered a mental break and ran off, that the phone in the alley really was a coincidence.”

Will nods, pulls Hannibal from the arm of the chair, so that he may reposition himself with his legs thrown across Hannibal’s lap. He nuzzles into the older man’s neck, at the spot where he knows his mark from the night before is. 

Turning his head to press a kiss to the top of Will’s head, he continues. “And he will ask me to perform your psych eval. And I will deem you unfit to return to the field.”

“Is that not a bit unethical, doctor? Considering our, ah, personal relationship?”

“Perhaps.” He rests his index finger under Will’s chin, tilting his head to up kiss him soundly on the lips. “But a small price to pay for your freedom.”

“And then what? We exchange wedding vows?”

“If you wish. I would share my life with you, if you would have me.”

Will rests his forehead against Hannibal’s.

“I would, as you are mine to have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there you go <3 please dont get the wrong idea about this fic, i think will graham is a sloppy bitch but hannibal likes him ig
> 
> if you think im creepy in a sexy way come hang out w me on tumblr @cannibalghost


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